Episode 1-2
You bastards!! Do you even have a silver soul! (てめーらァァァ!！それでも銀魂ついてんのかァァァ！, temēra-aaa!! sore demo gintama tsuiten no ka-aaa!) is a one-hour special that serves as the first two episodes of the anime series. Episode Quote Introduction Long ago, this nation was known as the land of the samurai. The dream-filled Edo skies, upon which the samurai once gazed, are now filled with the ships of the Amanto, beings that suddenly invaded and rose to power. And now these arrogant aliens walk the streets of the city. The samurai have lost their swords, status, and even their honor… In this city former samurai Gintoki Sakata runs the Odd Jobs business. One day he receives a visit from a client named Katoken. To regain something he has lost, Katoken needs 30 million ryo—a lot of money. After listening to Katoken’s endless tale of misfortune, the Odd Jobs trio feels obliged to help out. Meanwhile, the Amanto Kariya and his men gather to plot the takeover of Edo city... Plot The story starts with Gintoki being chased by men with swords, preferably samurai. The narrator introduces him as the hero of “this story”. Gintoki then turns tail and runs. He jumps to the other side of a wall on the excuse that he wishes to watch something on TV by 4. Once he is on the other side, he is met by a running Shinpachi who is also being chased by the men. They then continue to run comically until they get to a modernly paved road, nearly hit by a flying car in the process. The men are right behind them, but just when they were about to attack Kagura appears while riding on Sadaharu and accidentally let’s the latter run into the men and send them flying. They then proceed to run around town and “let” the men corner them. When they are asked who they are, all three finally introduce themselves as the Yorozuya. A cat then passes between the two parties. Sinpachi confirms that the cat is the missing Kuromi-chan that their client is looking for. All four then proceed to catch the cat, completely ignoring their surprised enemies. Gintoki is hit by a truck. Shinpachi introduces us to the Land of the Samurai, and explains the events of the Amanto seizing Edo. Here he states that it’s been one year since he had started working for Gintoki and has not once been paid. A few sneek peeks of the upcoming episodes are show while he says this. The scene goes to an Amanto called Kariya-san, along with a ronin, making some deal with two humans. Yamazaki and the Shinsengumi is then introduced. Hijikata discovers that there is an evil plan going on involving a destructive machine. The scene quickly shifts to the Yorozuya. Gintoki is reading Jump, but is thinking that he should really stop but can’t fight off the habit . Kagura is eating while trying to convince Gintoki to stop. Sadaharu sleeps peacefully on the floor while this takes place. Shinpachi enters the room and says they’re in out of money. An earthquake interrupts them. Someone rings on their doorbell. All three are thunder stricken when they find out it is a customer. The bald man’s name is Katou Ken. He tells them he needs money to buy back his house and about of all his misfortunes that started a month ago(loosing his job, house, and family), he stops right at the most important part. He then bargains to tell them what had happened a week ago if they help him find money. The five go in search of quick money, they go to Otose-san and Catherine for advice. They try to let Katou sell one of his organs, but no sane person would so they go back to Otose’s snack bar. Sa-chan is waiting for them on the ceiling. This time, Sa-chan accompanies them while Otose and Catherine go back to work. Katou meets two men he knew(they are the same men that were in the deal waith Kariya-san.) The two men bully him, and almost reveal a few clues to him but stop and leave. Sa-chan, Kagura, and Shinpachi are obviously pissed off by the men’s attitude and offer to kill them while Gintoki is getting rather bored. Katou, however, changes his request from earning money to get his house back to getting stronger. Gintoki leaves them to train him. Back at the Shinsengumi, Hijikata has shown Kondo the blue prints for an Amanto machine. All that time, Gintoki has been following the two men and it leads him to the Amanto Embassy. He is met by Katsura and Elizabeth at the entrance. While heading back, he is obstructed by the ronin that Kariya-san was with. Kagur, Shinpachi, and Sa-chan try to train Katou but he quits in the end, and leaves them. Meanwhile, Gintoki and the ronin have been battling, but Gintoki escapes. During the sunset, Sa-chan, Kagura, and Shinpachi are sitting by the river when Gintoki arrives. He hears that Katou has quit and then leaves. Shinpachi goes back to his and his sister, Otae’s, house with Kagura. Shinpachi complains that Gintoki didn’t even try to run after Katou. Otae seems to understand Gintoki more stating “ If you don’t believe in Gin-san, who will?” This serious atmosphere is soon killed by Kondo’s appearance under the table. Unlike Otae, Kondo doesn’t trust Gintoki, stating that he has “dead fish’s eyes”. Otae then proceeds to beat him up for stalking her. Shinpachi wonders where Gintoki is. It is revealed that Katou has been mulling in Pub Higucchan and is joined by Gintoki. He tells him that he was fired from his high job for no reason, his two friends took his seal by force and signed a contract using his seal, they then used the contract to take hold of his house, and due to all the pressure his wife and daughter left. Katou reveals to him what had happened to him one week ago. His young daughter had sent him a letter telling him that she wants to come home soon. This motivates him to try and fix things up. After hearing this, Gintoki indirectly says he’ll help him get the contract back. However, he starts throwing up so asks to break in tomorrow. An earthquake brews again. They re-group the next morning, Gintoki, Katou, Kagura, Shinpachi, and Sadaharu head straight for the Amanto Embassy. Gintoki then literally kicks the gate open and sends it flying. They enter but don’t find anyone except for a buffet. Gintoki, Kagura, and Sadaharu quickly succumb to the delicacies. All five are then trapped in cage(with the food) by the ronin, Kariya-san, and the two men. Through their breif conversation, their enemies find out that they were only there to get back the contract which made them less threatening. They laugh and tell Katou that after what will happen, he wouldn’t have to worry about a house or anything else anymore since they’ll get squashed real soon and walk off with an evil grin. Yamazaki is seen camouflaged in the bushes outside. While still trapped, Kastura appears and tells them that those people were planning to destroy Edo. Using a fault zone, they had planned to stimulate the Earth’s crust and make a giant earthquake that could destroy the whole of Edo. Kagura finally breaks the bars of the cage and the five run off to Katou’s house. Gintoki reveals that all of Katou’s misfortunes had occurred because his house was the on the fault zone that could trigger the earthquake. The Shinsengumi appear infront of Katou’s house. They already know about the plan as trying to stop it. However, even when they wanted to, they could not attack nor set foot into Katou’s house because it now belonged to the Amanto. Territorial law is arisen and the Shinsegumi are left helpless. The Yorozuya appear with Katou and smash trough the door full force, stating that they are “the real heroes”. They beat up the thugs that were guarding the place. Yamazaki observes that since they are not from the government the territorial law does not apply to them. The ronin wishes to fight Gintoki again giving the other time to laugh the destructive machine. Katou tries to stop them but Kariya takes out a lightsaber against his wooden sword. Gintoki tries to encourage him by saying “You yourself have to change first, or nothing will change for you!” He then remembers the good times he had with his family. He attacks Kariya full force but trips and KO’s Kariya unintentionally. Katou tries to stop the machine, but makes it faster instead, giving them only 25 seconds before the earthquake. However, he breaks the lever that could stop the machine. Gintoki quickly runs to the rescue, stepping over ronin and KO’ing him at the same time. He runs and jumps toward the machine at tremendous speed and stabs the red gem on the machine with his wooden sword, breaking the half of the machine into pieces in the process. This demonstrates his overwhelming strength, since he can literally destroy a steel machine with his own strength and his wooden sword. The bad guys are presumably arrested. But Katou’s house is destroyed in the process. Gintoki once again encourages him by asking “You’ve changed, haven’t you?”, this is answered by a respective “Yes.” The serious mood is once again broken by the appearance of the the cat, Kuromi-chan, the Yorozuya start chasing it all over again. Back at the Yorozuya house they return to normal, Gintoki reading jump, Sadaharu sleeping, Kagura eating. They watch TV and see Katou as a popular singer. They all smile happily while watching him perform. Behind them on the table is a letter to them. The letter is from Katou, saying that he had bought a new house for his family and thanks them deeply. At the end of the whole show, after the end credits, Sa-chan comes up and says that she forgot to appear in the second-half. Characters *Sakata Gintoki *Shimura Shinpachi *Kagura *Sadaharu *kondou Isao *Hijikata Toushirou *Okita Sougo *Yamazaki Sagaru *Harada Unosuke *Otose *Catherine *Sarutobi Ayame *Katsura Kotarou *Elizabeth *Shimura Tae Trivia * The Nikkei newspaper owns TV Tokyo, the station on which the Gintama anime was first broadcasted. When Kagura says to Shinpachi that if the newspaper salesperson is from the Nikkei he should refuse "as softly as the rising sun" (in Japanese, "asahi no you ni sawayaka ni"), "asahi" refers of course to the competing newspaper conglomerate, but the phrase itself is a cliché that appears as the title of many movies, drama and books. It's also the Japanese name for the classic jazz song "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise" from the 1928 operetta The New Moon. The phrase also appears in a poem by Emperor Meiji (in the form of "asahi no gotoku sawayaka ni"). * When Gintoki's hand is shaking, he makes the motion you use to operate a pachinko machine. That's how he loses all his money. * The whole episode, which is not based on the manga, takes elements from the well-known Japanese band and comedy group The Drifters. The client Kato Ken is based on Kato Cha. The antagonists Kariya, Shishimura, Shimomoto and Buu come respectively from Ikariya Chosuke, Shimura Ken, Nakamoto Koji, and Takagi Buu. The "Drift Star" (Drift Planet, actually) is obviously taken from the name of the group. * Kato Ken is also based at Matsudaira Ken and his nickname, Matsuken. At the end of the episode 2, he sings the Katoken Samba, a parody of the Matsuken Samba, song composed and played by Matsudaira Ken. * There are many other subtle references to The Drifters throughout the episode. In the first confrontation between Shishimura and Gintoki, piercing a fruit with a sword comes from a recurring sketch called Hige-dance where Shimura Ken and Kato Cha sometimes performed this age-old circus act while blindfolded. The pose when Shishimura realizes Gintoki has fled is also from the Hige-dance. During their short duel, Shishimura makes the sound "Aaa-iiin!" as they lock swords, a trademark catchphrase of Shimura Ken. Later, when Kato Ken explains his misfortunes to Gintoki while they drink, the scroll on top of the doors says "Zen'in Shugo", which is taken from the title of one of The Drifters many sketch shows. During the same flashback, the statue is of Hana Hajime, from rival music group Hana Hajime and the Crazy Cats. Hana Hajime is the one who gave Kato Cha his stage name. When Kariya and company get out of the embassy in their aircraft, Shishimura says "Daffunda!", another catchphrase of Shimura Ken. The name of the aircraft, the "Higashimurayama", is from Shimura Ken's birthplace. * When Kagura is eating rice at Shinpachi's house, she says "This is Tonari no Bangohan", which was the name of a reality show where a comedian would enter a house unannounced to check what the family was eating for supper. * The way Kagura explains how to jab is taken verbatim from a famous scene in Ashita no Joe. She then turns and says "Namidabashi wo gyaku ni watare" while putting on a disguise with an eyepatch, both of which are references to Joe's teacher Tange Danpei. After Kagura finishes her explanation, Shinpachi says that "It's for tomorrow" (ashita no tame ni), which is how every teaching of Tange Danpei begins (it has nothing to do with Kato Ken's training being for tomorrow or with jab training being for tomorrow, as some hasty translations might mislead you into thinking). * Both episode 1 and 2 were a one-hour special except for certain regions. *This episode takes place one year after Shinpachi became Gintoki’s employee. *In the first episode, Kagura is never seen wearing her purple umbrella while exposed to the sun. *When Kariya and his men left the mansion where the Yorozuya are stuck in, the music sounds similar to that of Darth Vader's Imperial March from Star Wars. **Kariya even held a light saber when fighting Kato Ken. **At the end of episode, when Gintoki is reading "jump" we can here recalls name "bankai" what is the connection to "Bleach" *According to the authors note from volume 6 ,This episode is based on the unproduced pilot chapter for Gintama manga series.https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/銀魂_(アニメ)#cite_note-50 References Category:Episodes Category:Anime Exclusive Episodes